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Once Will became a 13 year old boy, hunting was replaced with socializing. Like most kids his age, Will began to discover and find more about himself. Tinkering with materials and taking apart radios became one of his hobbies. Will's imagination grew wild at this point. Soon these hobbies turned into a business. People in the local community were coming to Geoffrey's (William's good friend) bedroom and requesting that the two young teenagers fix their radios.
“Odi, odi,” someone said, standing at the door. It was an old man from the next village, hiding his radio in his armpit like a chicken.
“Come in,” I said.
“I heard someone here fixes radios?”
“Yes, that would be me and my colleague, Mister Geoffrey. What’s the problem?”
“But you’re so young. How could this be?”
“You mustn’t doubt us. Tell me the problem.”
“I can’t find the station. It won’t listen.”
“Let me see…hmmm…yes, I think we can manage. You’ll have it before supper.”
“Make it before six! It’s Saturday, and I have my theater dramas.”
“Sure, sure.”
In Malawi, radios were one of the only connections to the outside world. Many people relied on these small devices to get information. Having this business allowed Will to get more information about radios and their makeup. One thing led to another. After learning about AM and FM radio, he learned how to make a battery out of used cells and recycled Shake Shake Booze.
Questions circled in Will's head:
Questions circled in Will's head:
" How did these wires and bits of plastic make it possible for a DJ in Blantyre to be speaking here in my home? How could music be playing on one end of the dial while the preacher spoke on the other? Who’d arranged them this way, and how did this person learn such wonderful knowledge?"
The only way to find out the answers was to do more experimenting.
At age 13 Will was growing up and making changes to his daily life. He produced more ideas and started to find hobbies that he liked. These ideas were scary, but he was determined to experiment on them. Will tried and discovered more from his experiments. His questions led to more ideas. Frightening ideas that threatened what is known to the world and confused people. This was just the beginning of Will's thought process, these thoughts would eventually lead to a project that would change the way his country viewed scientific possibilities.
1.| Early Ages | 2.| Age 13 | 3.| The Bicycle Dynamo | 4.| The Famine | 5.| Dr. Mchazime | 6.| The T.E.D. Conference